Shades of Grey

Oh the joys of homeownership.  Our home needs a new roof (which we knew when we bought it), but I had no idea how many colors a roof comes in. I guess I've never noticed and assumed most roofs were a standard brown, grey or black--I've never thought twice about roof colors. And, this is a rather big investment that will hopefully last another 20 years, so I want to pick a good color. 

So, here is our house currently:

It's a very pale cream/tan with black shutters, white trim and a black/charcoal roof.

We are not going to go with black because it apparently attract and traps the heat in the summer (but it doesn't do so in winter, which I know seems weird).  Grey roofs do not have this problem, so we are leaning towards a shade of grey. I initially was leaning towards charcoal/almost black, but I was driving by a cape cod in Fairway with our color scheme and noticed it had a light grey roof and loved it. 


Our roof shingles come in these colors of grey:

1. Driftwood:

2.  Estate Grey

3. Sierra Grey: 

 Here are a few samples of the general color scheme options (it doesn't help that I am in love with all these houses too).
Light greys:

Dark Grey/Black:

What's your favorite? Thoughts?

Back from the Arctic (So I Post Pictures of Our Living Room)

Okay, not really the Arctic, it just felt like the Arctic.  It was Alaska/Canada, and we were about 250 miles away from the Arctic Circle, which is plenty close for me. Let's be real, it was definitely cold enough. Still, it was beyond amazing.

We are sifting through our over 1,000 pictures--so I promise that as soon as we go narrow them down, I'll share them. Until then, here are a few more pictures of our home: 

Before: Yes, that is mauve/deep red trim, shelves and fireplace with dark off-white walls. To me, this makes it all look super busy and dark. Not our style at all.

Please ignore the little fact that none of our furniture matches because well, it still doesn't match as that's a whole other remodel down the hopefully soon road.  We have the pieces picked out and it's our next big home adventure.  We hope to have the money saved up by next year so that we can complete this room.   

For now, let's all just enjoy the paint, because it made one heck of a difference.

Covering everything to paint the walls

After of the fireplace: Porter Paints Eidelweiss trim, Wheat Sheaf walls, and Ceiling White ceiling.

The concrete around fireplace was cracked and had to be repaired, so it was painted black to hide the repair work and to pop (and the framing around the picture is getting painted black tomorrow to match).

The built-in shelving was also the same red. I wanted it to blend more and not compete as much with the reddish hardwood floors, so it was also painted the trim color Eidelweiss (a warmer grey white).  I am really pleased with how this room has turned out: much more modern, simple, and light.

Found on the Bathroom Walls

The people who owned the house before us had a Colonial/Shaker taste that was clearly reflected in the color scheme.  Cam and I knew the bathrooms walls were the first things to be changed as they were, ahem, a bit busy for our taste.

Exhibit A: our bathroom:

By busy, I mean the competition among the large print nuts and berries wallpaper, black and white tile, and navy shelving.  I do love the awesome tiled walk-in shower, large jacuzzi tub, white cabinetry, double sink, great tile, and plantation shutters.


Exhibit B: The first floor bathroom:

Just so we're clear, that is NOT wallpaper.  That has actually be hand-stenciled. Yes, stenciled. By a person. With their hand. All up and down my bathroom walls. Also, they mixed chrome and brass a lot in this bathroom.  The door knob, toilet lever, and window hardware are chrome.  The light fixture, faucet and stopper, and light switch are brass. This is a huge pet peeve of mine. But, the clearly more pressing concern is paint because the bathroom is newer.  Sigh, the bathroom renovation will be saved for another day--the paint is a big step for now. 


Here's the after of the downstairs bathroom's paint (we've hung the mirror back up since):

 Here's ours bathroom with the wallpaper stripped:

And the final product with the paint and shelves/hooks back up:

 

Repairs

When we bought the house, there were some repairs that had to be done before anything else. Our handyman was wonderful at fixing everything that needed to be done. Ignore the quality on a lot of these pictures--they are mostly taken with my Blackberry.

First, here's some of the plaster damage from the leaking jacuzzi. It's hard to tell the damage in a picture (it was a lot more obvious in person), but if you look closely, you can see the large bubbling around the right and upper sides of spotlight:

Next, here are the pictures of the painful pictures where C ripped the original 1930s trim off the door frame to fit the desk into the office.

 

 Thank goodness for C that Miguel and his crew were completely able to repair the damage.  We asked him not to rebuild the piece as it was completely so that we can get the desk out if we ever need to, so he sanded it all down and filled in the ridges.  Here's the finished product here:

 

 Next, here is the damage to the upstairs wallpaper.  This wallpaper is from several owners ago so I would have loved to keep it, but the paper had faded badly over the years from the skylights and windows. You can see some of the fading in pictures:

 

 Also, on the other wall, someone had taken the wallpaper already off that wall but had not stripped the glue before they had painted it.  Therefore, the wall was very pocketed and damaged looking.  Also, the skylight had apparently been leaking at one point and there was damage and cracking on the wall around the light.

 Because of all this, we had the wallpaper upstairs removed and the walls resurfaced. We have left the wallpaper in the hallways downstairs as it was in good shape.

 Shockingly, once the wallpaper was removed we discovered serious damage to the plaster behind the walls.  There were over one hundred holes, some of which were as large as my fist. 

 

 To put the paint color into prospective, here is the color on the walls with the original trim color still up. The original trim color looked white against the  wallpaper and underneath paint color, but it was a very dark grey.  Our paint color for this hall is Porter Paint color Wheat Shaf.

 Here's the final product of the upstairs hallway and walls with Wheat Shaf on the walls and Edelweiss is the trim color (yes, the light fixture is going to be changed to a chandelier eventually).  I'm so happy with the repair work that has been done:

All Moved In...So Let the Renovations Begin

We completely moved into the new home last week and it's been so busy around here. We are in love with this new house.  The new house was built in the 1930s by a local architect who designed quite a few of the buildings downtown.  The house has so much charm, so we are doing our best to maintain the vintage feel where its possible.

Oh but ladies, the biggest shocker was two hours after closing, I'm at the new house (with my wonderful in-laws who came in town to help us move) cleaning and getting things put away.  The inspector had mentioned that the jacuzzi tub had some brownish water when he ran it from where the water had sat in the pipes. So, we took some bleach, mixed it into the water, and ran the tub for a while.  After it had thoroughly cleaned, we drained the tub. I walked downstairs to put something away, and at the bottom of steps I see the bleach water running down my chandelier, down the walls, and the canned light fixtures in my eat-in kitchen (breakfast room). I panicked. Luckily, we plugged the tub and got buckets quickly enough that no damage was done to the oriental rug or table in the room.  The light fixtures all dried out, and the plaster ceiling has been repaired.  The drain on the tub had apparently dry-rotted and has also been replaced.  

Also, the desk didn't fit through the door frame to the office by less than a half-inch, even when it was taken apart.  I was beyond sick when I walked in and my darling husband was literally chiseling the 1930s crown-moulding off around the door. He completely ripped out the door jam, so the poor door frame was gone through major restoration over the week.  But, we got the desk into the office so apparently that's all that matters.

I've found a great handyman (who has a great painting crew) that can fix pretty much everything we've thrown at him thus far (everything--the plumbing, the door frame, the plaster repair, interior/exterior painting). Seriously, there is no question that he's become my new best friend.  Our wallet is probably needing a break, but I'm in love with all the updates thus far. 

I'll give you an itemized list of each thing we've had done to the house, and I'll try to post pictures of each room's before and after eventually (let's just say we can all agree that if I fail the bar, it won't be for over-blogging, sorry guys). 

• Removed all wallpaper upstairs 
• Repainted all trim, windows, doors, walls, and ceilings in the hallways, bathrooms, kitchen, breakfast room, and living room (they're still working on doing second coats to all the trim)
• Refinished (er...refinishing as we are still in the process) the kitchen cabinets and the built-ins in the living room and breakfast room
• bought new pulls for the drawers (and have narrowed down the selection for cabinet knobs).
• Repaired all damage to the plaster behind the wallpaper and from the tub leak and sanded, filled, and restored the door jam in the office
• Sanded and repainted all exterior trim (and touch up of brick when it was needed).
• Most importantly--removing every inch of mauve in the house (unfortunately, we still have navy to do at a later point).  

Ahh, house decorating/fixing up is so much more interesting than the Bar exam.

Going Green(er)

So in all that time I didn't spend blogging, I have gotten some home improvements done.  I painted our bedroom last year a green, but the color ended up being more seafoam green than the khaki/olive color we wanted.  So, I finally picked out a green that I liked (Sherwin Williams Burlap) and I repainted our bathroom and bedroom.

I like the fact our bedroom and bathroom now flow (our bathroom was blue before).  Also, the color is much more soothing and relaxing than the lighter green. So, while our bathroom is a far cry from the master oasis I would love to have, at least is better for now.  Our bathroom is definitely something on our list of things to update eventually...

bathroom before

bathroom after

 

 bedroom before (the color is pretty muted in this picture..it was pretty minty/seafoam green IRL)

bedroom color after (again, same color as bathroom, an olive/khaki)

 

While the bedroom color isn't a drastic change, it makes us happier, which is all that matters, right?

Hope everyone's day is going well and that everyone had a safe holiday weekend!

I Have No Excuses Left Now Not to Cook

Our kitchen is FINALLY DONE.  


We repainted the cabinets, built the island, painted the walls, replaced the backsplash and countertops with granite, removed the soffit and put in can lighting, refinished the tops of the cabinets with crown, built a cabinet to cover the oven vent, replaced the sink and faucet, and installed a TV in the corner. 

Again: here is the before shots: 

And the final project (the light isn't green/yellow--its just shows up that way):